


Touch

by rainier_day



Series: The Procession [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 16:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19816141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainier_day/pseuds/rainier_day
Summary: “I love you too,” he replies automatically. And he means it. Hedoes.He just can’t feel it yet.





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Touch" by Sleeping at Last. So many good titles from them

Watching Jester paint another mural in her and Beau’s room, Molly blinks when the other tiefling pauses in her work to grin mischievously at him. His gaze follows her paintbrush to see the outline of a penis about to be hidden away with shapes and colours. “Do you like it, Molly?” she asks.

“I love it,” he replies, and the words almost come out naturally.

Taking his words for face value, Jester smiles and begins painting over her little Easter egg. “I knew you’d appreciate it! Do you want something new for you and Yasha’s room? Another mural for the other wall maybe? I can go get more paint! What do you want? The inside of the circus tent? Or maybe a nice seaside view?”

As she excitedly lists off suggestions without waiting for a reply, a smile touches his lips.

Happiness comes more frequently now. It’s still fleeting at best, but the Mighty Nein have seen to it that he gets a healthy dose of it every day. It’s there when Beau attempts to provide their guests with aggressive hospitality, when Yasha swallows him up in a tight hug at the end of a good day, and when Caleb asks for company down in his lab.

What eludes him still is the _depth_ of the happiness he used to feel. Things had been simpler then, when he could laugh and feel alive simply by _being_. It still teases him through memories of better days past and try as he might to feel even an ounce of that wealth of emotion, he always fails only to be engulfed by ice cold flames and a fear that threatens to crush his heart right inside his chest.

“Molly?”

He gives a start and recoils a little.

Jester’s face falls and she takes a step back from him to give him space. “Are you okay? Did you have another vision? Did you see something scary?”

Molly shakes his head. “No, you just surprised me.”

She studies him for a moment before saying gently, “It’d be okay if you did, you know? I’ll be right here for you.” Then in Infernal, she tells him, “I love you, Mollymauk, you know that right? Nothing’s ever going to change that. You’re family.”

“I love you too,” he replies automatically. And he means it. He _does_.

He just can’t feel it yet.

Satisfied, Jester returns to her mural and asks, “Did you want to stay here and watch me paint a little longer? I’m almost done anyway. We can let it dry and go down and see if Fjord picked up those pastries like I asked him to!”

“I’d like that,” Molly says with a nod. 

Even though he manages a smile, he knows this one doesn’t reach his eyes.

\--

The day only gets worse from there. After hitting that slump, he can’t find it in himself to escape the icy claws of fear that cling to him and dig icicles into his heart. Despite Jester’s best efforts, he finds himself back in his and Yasha’s room with an uneaten pastry on the nightstand. 

With his roommate out on a short mission out in the Ghostlands, the room feels vast and cold without her steady presence. Sitting on the bed, he stares at the painted field of flowers and closes his eyes.

It’s easy to remember flowers. They passed by so many fields of them in the circus. He remembers pulling Yasha out of the cart and leading her to a particularly beautiful one on their way to some nondescript town. Flanked by Toya and the twins, they spent the day stringing together wreaths of flowers while Yasha hummed and filled the pages of her book.

Life with the circus wasn’t perfect by any means but that day had been pretty close.

Even so, none of the contentment he had felt comes back to him.

Opening his eyes, Molly’s shoulders slump in defeat.

There’s a soft knock on the door.

Turning around, he sees Caleb enter the room. “Mollymauk? Jester said you would be in here.”

Guilt immediately gnaws at him, and even _that_ he wishes he could feel more deeply. “Sorry.”

“Nein, I did not mean…” Clearing his throat, the wizard reconsiders his words. “Jester was worried, ja, but I was also looking for you. Are you alright?”

“I don’t think so.” He closes his eyes and leans into the touch as Caleb draws closer and cups his face gently. “I want to feel again, Caleb,” he admits quietly. “I miss it but I can’t even _miss_ it properly.”

Caleb frowns sympathetically and rubs a thumb along the feathers on his face. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s any way to fix this—to fix _me_ ,” Molly admits. He stops short of wondering out loud if his return was really a good thing, but the wizard seems to catch the thought anyway.

Crouching in front of him, Caleb takes his hands and kisses his fingers softly. “Mollymauk Tealeaf, you belong here. You deserve to be here and you are worthy of all our love. Bitte, don’t go down that path. I have been down there. It is cruel and dark and unbearably lonely.”

At Caleb’s words, he feels his heart break a little more. Lifting a hand, he runs a hand through brownish-red strands and whispers, “But you made it back out. And you’re all the stronger for it.” 

“It does not always feel that way,” the wizard confesses with a small wry smile. “With everything happening here, sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier to stay in the darkness.”

“It wouldn’t have been able to keep you there. No matter how you try to hide it, you were bright and dazzling—you still are in all this night,” Molly says with a conviction he remembers more than feels. Seeing the wizard in front of him with his lips still pressed to his fingers, something surges within him then but it’s not enough to claw its way through. Or, perhaps _he’s_ just not enough. “I want to love you again. I remember it, and even if I can’t really feel it...Caleb, I miss loving you.”

How strange it is, a voice whispers in his head, that when they had the chance, they never once spoke the word to each other— _took care_ to never accidentally say it. And now, with so much in the way, they’re able to use it so freely.

Caleb reaches up and cups his face, imploring him, “Patience, Mollymauk. I know it is hard, but there’s time. There _will_ be time and I will be here. I will always be here for you—for as long as I am capable. I promise you.”

With the war between the Empire and the Dynasty looming, he wonders how true those words are. No matter how sequestered away they are in this beautiful house in a city of constant night, the events surrounding them are bound to intertwine with their lives so long as they remain. If not the war, then this horrible and endlessly powerful being he has residing within him is bound to show itself in one form or another—and he doesn’t know if he can withstand any more of that deep searing pain.

If he loses any more of his soul, will he still be Mollymauk Tealeaf?

Is he still that person now? Or is he simply wearing the name and body of some poor soul long since turned to ashes?

No matter how many times he chases the thought away, it always returns.

A hand lands on his own and he gives a slight jolt, turbulent waves of fear stirring inside him once more. “There will be time,” Caleb says again, his piercing blue eyes beseeching. “We will _make_ time, and we will keep you safe. Whatever it takes.”

Molly shakes his head. He doesn’t know how to give voice to his thoughts, how to say no, they _shouldn’t bother_ —how to tell them that he’s not the person they want back. The Procession was stopped and he’s been back for weeks now and while there have been some good days, for every good day, there’s a whole week of bad. Of numbness and despair. Of his very existence falling short of _enough_. And try as he might, the little reservoir of hope he managed to gather up is drying up fast.

When he doesn’t answer, Caleb asks, “Do you trust me, Mollymauk?”

Looking up from his thoughts, he nods. “With whatever’s left of my soul.”

The wizard purses his lips for a moment. “Then, if you can’t believe in yourself or in the fates or whatever else there is, believe in _me_. And believe me when I tell you, you _will_ get better.”

He mulls over the words, turning them this way and that before nodding slowly. If Caleb can say it with that much conviction then perhaps he’s still worth _something_. Caleb, smart and beautiful Caleb, who couldn’t hide his brightness no matter how he crawled through the dirt with filth smeared on his face…

There’s a twinge in his chest.

A glimmer of warmth so fleeting Molly thinks he might’ve imagined it.

“I trust you, Caleb,” he says, more confident in this than anything else he’s felt so far.

Giving his hand a reassuring squeeze, Caleb smiles then, soft and sincere. “Thank you. I know you may not see it, but your soul is still as beautiful as it ever was. You are not lost and you are loved, and I will remind you as many times as it takes until you believe it for yourself, Mollymauk.”

His eyes sting. There’s a pinching sensation in his nose and his throat is tight but the tears don’t come. “You’ve become very good at comforting people.”

“I have a lot of experience being on the receiving end of it,” the wizard tells him. Standing up, he leans down and presses a kiss to Molly’s forehead. “You used to do this for me. Do you remember?”

He does remember—the manticore and the flames and Caleb looking so lost to distant memories. Looking up, he admits, “I remember. I never knew if it really helped you.”

Caleb tilts his head a little. “Did that help _you_?”

Molly rubs his forehead and eventually nods. Although the kiss was fleeting, the sensation lingers. “Yes, I think so.”

“You were very good at comforting people too, Mollymauk,” Caleb tells him. Then as if suddenly feeling sheepish, he shrugs. “I could go on, but I am sure you are sick of hearing my voice.”

“No, it helps,” he tells the wizard honestly. “I...I would like to listen some more, Caleb.”

Blinking a little owlishly as if caught off guard by the request, Caleb hesitates. Molly’s about to retract his comment and apologize when the wizard offers, “If you would like, I could...read to you? I am currently reading a book on dunamancy theory but I’m afraid it would be very dull for you.” Then perking up, he adds, “I could also recite _Tusk Love_ if you would prefer that?”

He shakes his head. “Your book is fine. If you don’t want to—”

“Nein, I do,” Caleb interjects. “You surprised me a little, ja, but I think I would like that very much.” Giving his hand another squeeze, he steps back and says, “Let me get my book and we can read in bed, okay?”

Molly nods as his hand is dropped and he folds them in his lap to wait.

Reaching the door, Caleb turns around and says, “You said you missed loving me, but, what we have right now... What we’re doing—this is a kind of love as well, Mollymauk.”

His eyes widen.

“I, uh, I will go get my book. Please excuse me,” the wizard mumbles sheepishly and slips out the door.

Left alone and still a little shocked, Molly reaches up and touches his forehead where he’d been kissed. 

He finds that his smile comes a little easier for the rest of the day.

\--

**Extra: Caleb**

Running a hand through soft locks of deep purple, Caleb reads from a thick tome of complex mathematical formulas and magic circles. Head resting in his lap, Molly’s eyes are closed and he’s breathing softly, on the verge of sleep.

He spares a glance down.

His hair is longer now and his cheeks a little gaunter, but Mollymauk is still as beautiful now as in his memories.

 _“Caleb, how much longer are you going to be?”_ his mind supplies. Phantom arms drape loosely around his shoulders and a sharp chin rests on his head. There’s the soft jingle of charms long since burnt away and an impossible warmth at his back and the faint waft of a light floral perfume and incense.

_“Just a little longer, Mister Mollymauk. Have patience.”_

_“How long do you expect me to be patient, Mister Caleb? We don’t have forever.”_ Clever ring-adorned fingers sneak their way past his collar and his heart flutters a little despite himself.

_“Behave.”_

_“Or else what?”_

He glances up then and for a moment, he almost catches a glimpse of bright, mischievous red eyes looking back down at him and a grin so full of life it could serve as an artificial sun in this land of magical night.

“Caleb? Why’d you stop?” comes a soft voice laced with sleep.

Head tilting back down, he sees Molly turn his head to look back curiously—no, not curious. An approximation of concern. His tail loosely wraps around his ankle, mindful and deliberate.

Shaking his head and pushing the memories back, he says, “I, uh, forgive me, Mollymauk. I got distracted by my thoughts.” He smiles a little. “You used to get so impatient with me reading.”

“Yes, but I also liked watching you read,” Molly tells him, almost smiling back. “For a little while, at least. Perhaps if you had read your books out loud to me I would’ve been more patient.”

Just then, just for a fleeting instant, he thinks he sees a glimmer of mischief in those ruby eyes. Caleb huffs and starts stroking the tiefling’s hair again. “Ja, if only I had thought of that. But this is fine. We can make up for lost time.”

With his free hand, he turns the page and continues reading.

This is fine, Caleb thinks to himself as Molly settles back and closes his eyes once more.

This is more than fine.

This is a kind of love too.

**Author's Note:**

> Some soft. I was done writing but then I saw [this](https://milli-van-vanilli.tumblr.com/post/186262375345/at-least-read-to-him-caleb) by Milli and suddenly wanted to write an extra with a bit of pre-procession molly.


End file.
